What Grows Dies Here

Almost … charming. Almost. He couldn’t shake off that menacing air that hovered around him. People were scared of him. I could see that. And I liked it. Liked that he was mine.

My parents, of course, were not scared. They were impressed.

“Than the others,” my father clarified. “He’s different.”

My parents had been around for a lot of the men I’d dated. I hadn’t tried to hide my romantic history from them, I honestly hadn’t thought they noticed all that much. My father had abandoned the shotgun and the porch routine when I started dating a teen popstar at sixteen.

It didn’t suit him anyway. He took care of himself, my father. He came from Greek parents who had money. Oil money. Not from humble beginnings like my mother. He’d been born rich. He hadn’t had to fight for much, well, except my mother. She put up somewhat of a fight, falling in love with a filthy rich businessman when she was determined to make her own fortune.

But he won her over.

My father won everyone over. He had kind eyes. Light brown, easy to smile, his face wrinkled with evidence of that. Those wrinkles only made him look more distinguished, handsome. The same with the white in his midnight black hair. And he worked with a trainer six days a week, even in his late sixties, so he was in great shape too.

But his hands were smooth, without calluses, scars. He was not a fighter, my father.

Which was why I adored him. And kind of killed the theory that every girl looked for a man like their father, because Karson couldn’t be more his opposite.

But my father was perceptive. Apparently, more perceptive than I’d thought. He loved me. A lot. I knew that. From the way he bought me ponies, jewelry, flew all of my friends to the Maldives for my sixteenth birthday. He threw money at me to show his love.

I hadn’t thought he looked at my life close enough to see what Karson was.

Then again, Karson was a guy you looked at, who you saw.

“Yeah, Daddy, he’s different,” I admitted quietly.

“I’m happy for you,” he smiled down at me. “You’ve found a man who will treat you like you deserve. Not like the princess I treated you as but as the queen you are.”

His words hit true.

“Do I want to know what he does for a living?” he asked after a few beats.

I bit my lip and tried not to smile. “No, Daddy.”

His eyes twinkled as he nodded, draining his drink. “Okay, then.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

I Love the Rain the Most – Joe Purdy

We were back at my place.

Not because I particularly wanted to be there, but because it was much closer than Karson’s cottage, and both of us were desperate for each other.

We’d barely made it in the front door.

That’s where our clothes were.

We were now in the kitchen after hours in bed. Karson had cooked us fettucine because the food at the dinner was impossibly fancy and comically small.

I had devoured the food because I was starving and because Karson was a truly wonderful cook.

I liked it. Him cooking for me. Caring for me in that way. It went deeper, meant more considering my problems in the past. It felt like he was repairing a part of me. Nourishing a vulnerable part.

He had on his slacks but nothing else. My eyes went to his chest. There was no shock seeing my name there. No anger.

Only warmth spreading from the deepest parts of me.

He was right. There was no more running.